Everyone knows football is a violent sport. Imagine enduring the 327 carries running back Keylon Kincade logged last season. Imagine getting flattened by defensive tackle Allan Adami or getting blocked into the bench by Sterling Harris. To SMU sophomore defensive tackle Brad Bean, those punishments probably sound like a relaxing massage.

SMU defensive tackle Brad Bean.

By making the travel squad for Saturday's Western Athletic Conference opener at Nevada, Bean has completed one of the most remarkable recoveries of any SMU athlete in recent memory. Bean's playing career - not to mention his life - were in serious jeopardy after a March 13 car wreck left him with a fractured Thoracic-12 vertebrae in his back. Given the pounding and compression force endured by those who play his position in the interior of the defensive line, returning to the field was anything but certain.

Upon hearing the news of Bean's injury, "we were all scared to death," SMU head coach Phil Bennett said. "Brad's lucky to be alive. If you saw that car he was riding in - it was completely demolished."

Bean had been with some friends at Joe Pool Lake in Grand Prairie the day of the accident. On the way back from the lake, Bean was riding (with his seatbelt fastened) in the passenger seat of his friend's Honda.

"We went around a steep left embankment when we lost control," Bean said. "We ended up sliding backward into a gully, and the force of going back like that broke the chair (car seat). I was ejected through the rear window. My friend's brother was in the back seat behind the driver's seat, so he didn't get ejected.

"I don't remember a lot at that point. All I remember is waking up for a minute, and I was all the way across the street from the car. After that, I don't remember anything."

Bean was transported in an ambulance he doesn't recall to a hospital, of which he also has no recollection. He then was transferred to another hospital, but says he doesn't remember anything that happened for several days.

"The first thing I remember is when my coach (SMU assistant head coach and defensive tackles coach Bob Fello) walked into the hospital room a few days after the accident," Bean said. "To this day, I have friends who tell me they talked to me, and I don't remember that at all."

Fello said he was understandably shaken when he learned of Bean's accident.

"I found out about it when my cell phone rang, and it was Brad," Fello said. "He asked if I'd heard what happened to him, and I said I hadn't heard. He told me he was in a bad car accident, and that he had a broken back. I don't remember if I even thought about him playing football again. I worried about how he would walk, how he would function. I went to see him in the hospital, and his mom was in the room with him. I guess he wanted to show me that he wasn't in pain, so he tried to sit up. He regretted that right away."

The injury meant Bean would not be working out with his teammates as they went through spring workouts in preparation for the 2003 season. A former walk-on who played tight end in 2001 (his redshirt year), before moving to defensive end and then defensive tackle last year, Bean admitted he contemplated the idea of giving up his playing career.

"I did, I thought about that," he said. "I was pretty depressed for a little while. You work so hard to come back and be better after we had a losing season last year .... it was tough to take."

SMU defensive tackle Brad Bean.

Bean is small for a defensive tackle. At his biggest last year, he says he carried around 260 pounds on his 6-foot-3 frame, although Fello said that by the end of the season, he had run his way back down to about 235, despite receiving limited playing time behind senior Lute Croy. Vigorous offseason workouts had pushed him back to around the 260-pound range, but the accident forced him to abandon the weight room, and the drugs he was taking tempered his appetite to the point that he ate just one meal a day, shrinking to just 223 pounds in a couple of months.

But as he began to feel better and get off his medications, he started to get the itch to play again. He saw a slew of doctors, who told him he could in fact play again, if he chose to.

"I gave Brad the option," Bennett said. "He sat here in my office and I told him if he didn't want to play, he could take a medical redshirt, that his scholarship would be paid for. You know, I've got kids of my own, and spinal injuries are scary things. I would never take a chance - I'd never play a kid if there was a chance it could jeopardize his health. But the doctors said he could play, and he told me he wanted to play again."

When the Mustangs convened for preseason workouts, Bean was essentially a student assistant to Fello. He followed his position coach around, absorbing the mental aspects of the defense and doing "mental reps" as the healthy players sweated out their drills in the August sun. He also continued a carefully designed strength regimen.

"Before his injury, Brad showed a lot of athletic ability," Fello said. "He's a smart kid with a good head on his shoulders. During the time that he couldn't work out, he grew a lot, in terms of his understanding of the game and the position. You have to remember, he's still very inexperienced at defensive tackle. So a lot of his work was mental. He was a walk-on tight end, then a defensive end, then a defensive tackle - this position is still pretty new to him. For a while, he really wasn't able to do a lot of upper-body work, but he was able to do a lot with his legs -- squats, stuff like that. His legs are probably as strong - or maybe even stronger - than they were before, which is good, because so much of your strength and power come from your legs.

"He and Allan Adami both finished the season at probably 230, 235 pounds - not exactly your prototype defensive tackle. While they're not structurally large, they still can be effective because they're both really quick. You know, in life, you have to overcome obstacles all the way. You have to use what you've got. If you're fast, you have to use your speed, and that's what he and Allan do. He understands blocking schemes, and he's getting better at using his speed to his advantage."

"I wasn't cleared to lift weights for a while," Bean said. "Eventually, I started slowly, but I kept having back pain. I had another MRI, and it showed that the disc had infringed on the lower part of my (broken) vertebrae. So all I did was run."

While running and filling his new "student assistant" role, Bean approached Bennett before the season opener at Texas Tech, and asked about the team flight, only to learn that Bennett didn't plan to take Bean in Lubbock.

"I didn't understand why, and I didn't know what he wanted," Bean said, "until he told me he couldn't take me (as a student assistant), because I was coming back to play this year. I had wiped that idea out of my mind - I was thinking I needed to get ready for spring." Bean's running shows in practice, where he draws supportive 'complaints' from teammates.

"I think he's almost as strong as he was, especially in his legs," Bennett said. "I think his teammates kind of get on him a little bit, because he wasn't out there in two-a-days, so he's got fresher legs."

Fello said he expects Bean to play Saturday - just four days after his first full practice of the year. Adami said the off-time has done nothing to curb Bean's non-stop motor.

"He came right out of the gate when he was cleared to play this week," Adami said. "He was tackling people all over the place. We had to remind him that we hold up a little when we're running scout team. He's got those fresh legs, and the effort is always there."

The players who have lined up against Bean in practice also realize that he's pretty much back to his old form, at least in terms of his quickness.

"He's really quick off the line - he hasn't lost a step" center Steve Reindl said. "He might not have quite the strength he had before, but that'll come. But he's still really explosive, and he uses his hands really well."

SMU defensive tackle Brad Bean.

Once his doctors gave him the green light to prepare to play, Bean said he's not surprised he's back in the rotation at defensive tackle. His coaches say they expected him to make it back to the playing field this season. But his teammates admit they expected him back - next season.

"I'm not surprised he's back, but I didn't think he'd play this year," Adami said. "About four weeks ago, he came in to the locker room and said 'Guess what? Coach Bennett wants me to get ready.' Since then, he's been working toward this."

"(Head trainer) Cash (Birdwell) is the best, and if Cash says Brad's ready, then he's ready," Reindl said. "But you can have all the doctors say he's ready to come back, but you can't measure a guy's heart. Brad's got a lot of heart."

His comeback has served as something of a wake-up call for some of his teammates, as some players with minor injuries have steered clear of the trainers' room when they consider how minor their ailments are, compared to what Bean has been though.

"I always try to avoid the trainers' room, anyway," Reindl said. "If you're legitimately injured, that's one thing. But I think Brad has inspired some guys to play through some minor, nagging things that everyone goes through. There's kind of an unspoken respect for him. I think the team appreciates and respects what he's gone through, because they know what it's taken for him to come back."

For all his coaches' and teammates' faith in him, perhaps the biggest surprise is the fact that Bean is back on the travel team. The Ponies will take just four defensive tackles to Reno: Bean, Adami, and freshmen Brandon Bonds and Desmond Jones. With just four interior linemen making the trip, Bean - although still relatively inexperienced at his position and still re-gaining his strength - is expected not just to travel, but to play. But to Bean, that's not enough.

"For Saturday to be a success, I want to get on the field, but if I can somehow help motivate my team when they see who's lined up in front of them - I think they can thrive off what I've gone through," Bean said. "More than that, for Saturday to be a success, we have to win, because I don't care about anything else. Guys aren't giving me any special treatment or taking it easy on me, and that's exactly what I want.

"I feel like part of the team again, and that really means a lot."